Oakland's touted anticrime triumph falters

Arrests lauded as major victory in news conference nabbed motley group of suspects, with half released

Published 4:17 pm, Saturday, August 31, 2013

There were no plans for a big bust on Aug. 14 when the gang task force of the Oakland Police Department suited up and rolled onto the ravaged streets of East Oakland.

And there wasn't one: Police arrested eight people, most on suspicion of committing nonviolent crimes.

But the next morning, police commanders and a top aide to Mayor Jean Quan were trumpeting the arrests at a news conference as the result of Operation Ceasefire - the city's antiviolence initiative - and describing the eight men as violent gang members.

Now it appears that was an exaggeration.

The Alameda County district attorney's office charged only three of the men with crimes. A fourth was arrested on a warrant accusing him of selling narcotics.

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The other four people apparently didn't stay behind bars for long. Prosecutors said there wasn't enough evidence to charge two and that they never received casework for the other two.

Still, interim Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent and Quan aide Reygan Harmon, interim director of Operation Ceasefire in the mayor's office, decided the arrests warranted special notice. The city was reeling from the fatal shootings the week before of a father and his year-old son.

"Addressing violent crime is my top priority," Whent said at the Aug. 15 news conference. "When our children are the victims of violent crime, it is completely unacceptable. My top strategy for addressing violent crime in this city is Ceasefire."

Under Operation Ceasefire, community leaders, clergy and service providers meet with members of gangs or groups, offer support and ask them to stop shooting each other while police, who are also at the meetings or call-ins, promise intense scrutiny if the violence does not stop.

In the wake of the news conference, the city came under fire from the American Civil Liberties Union for refusing to release the identities of the eight people authorities arrested.

Lt. Tony Jones, head of the Oakland Police Gang Task Force, which made the arrests Aug. 14, said he doesn't know why the city held a news conference.

The police weren't out to crack down, Jones said. It was a low-key operation where officers fanned out to check up on suspected or known gang members.

Still, the operation was not without results.

Two men, Craig Goatley, 27, and Calvin Odom, 24, have been charged with a litany of violent crimes after they led police on a high-speed pursuit, including driving the wrong way on Interstate 580.

Police watched Goatley point a Tec-9 automatic pistol in the face of two men he was arguing with before fleeing in a stolen car. When deputies with the Alameda County Sheriff's Office stopped the two men, police found a 14-year-old girl they believe was being forced to be a prostitute.

Both Goatley and Odom have been charged with the crimes and are being held in jail.

Police also charged another man, Michael Acosta, 19, with concealing a stolen handgun. He also remains in jail.

No one else has been charged with a crime.

While police won't say why they held the Aug. 15 news conference, one longtime observer of the Police Department said it was probably a public relations move.

"I think what you're seeing is pressure to deal with crime by the public ... by anyone who has ever lived or been in Oakland," said Jim Chanin, a Berkeley civil rights attorney.

"You have a press conference. People remember the press conference. And then when someone goes into the content of the press conference the bark is loud, while the bite is minimal, negligible or nonexistent."